


Passing the Days

by egoat



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Depression, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-30 06:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12648420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egoat/pseuds/egoat
Summary: Before the events of Persona 5, Futaba copes with living.





	1. Chapter 1

_Get up on your feet, tear down the walls_

_Catch a glimpse of the hollow world_

_Snooping 'round town will get you nowhere_

_You're locked up in your mind_

_\- Pursuing My True Self, Persona 4_

When Monday came around, Futaba made an effort to correct her sleep schedule somewhat and get up before noon. She did this for no reason in particular, as it mattered to no one.

After her mother had killed herself, she was given a break from school to give her time to grieve and adjust to living with her uncle. That break became indefinite after moving in with Sojiro.

Sojiro would occasionally bother Futaba about going back to school, going outside, things like that. He would stand outside her bedroom door lecturing her until he gave up and left. For the most part, he was too weak-willed to see any of his threats through. Regardless, whenever he got in this mood, Futaba would quickly curl up in bed, hiding under her covers until he went away. Sometimes these lectures would go on until she started crying. In a way, they were almost as bad as the hallucinations, even though the message was different. A few times she could tell Sojiro had heard her weeping through the door and that prompted him to stop.

Their living situation was awkward and uncertain. Futaba had long ago decided he couldn’t really understand her anyway. She stayed in her room whenever he was home.

As part of the adoption process, Futaba had taken his name, and was now Futaba Sakura. This suited her fine, as she felt she didn’t deserve her mother’s name. In fact, thinking about it made her want to crawl out of her skin. Anyway, she suspected that Sojiro probably thought of her as his daughter because of this. She also suspected that, like the rest of her family members, Sojiro Sakura hated her and hoped she would die.

Her reasoning for this was basic; she knew from rethinking her past that he must have been in love with her mother, from his behavior around her and from some things her mother had hinted at. And he knew that Futaba was responsible for her mother’s death. So, there was only one conclusion to be drawn.

Still, why did he take her in then? And continue to feed her, and keep her in his house?

She supposed it could be pity. Maybe he felt like he owed it to Futaba’s mother, in some warped way, to keep her daughter safe.

Thinking about Sojiro gave her a headache. Still tired, she checked her phone for the time, 9:03 AM, and dragged herself out of bed. She went to take a shower.

If Futaba were to admit it, her life was basically over.

She no longer had school, or a job, or any other obligations or responsibilities. She didn’t have any friends, nor family that would speak to her. Her mother was gone. Her father was never there to begin with. Completely untethered from anything, and without anyone, Futaba drifted from day to day, lost, broken, and haunted by her own mind.

No voices or memories had come to torture her on her way to the bathroom, but she was sure they would come eventually. Her failure to kill herself as she and everyone else wanted had led to these “cognitions”–illusions, or memories, or manifestations of her family members, and sometimes her own mother, haunting her, reminding her of the truth. The truth that she was responsible for her mother’s death, the truth that she didn’t belong in this world.

She started to tear up in the shower. She felt so helpless and pathetic; she started crying more, and then more, until she had totally broken down.

How had her life become like this?

 

Because she was too afraid and weak to really end her own life, instead, she merely passed the days.

Sojiro would usually prepare her some kind of breakfast before leaving the house and would leave it sitting out on the kitchen table for her. She would shamefully scarf it down as soon as he got out the door. She was nearly always starving, though she was too embarrassed to admit it to Sojiro. She would regularly skip meals, sometimes as self-punishment and commonly out of apathy, laziness, or fear of leaving her room to get more food.

Today, Sojiro had prepared her omurice. She had let it cool on the counter while taking her shower, and, after calming down from her breakdown, and toweling herself off, she sat down to eat it joylessly.

The way she spent her days from waking up until going to sleep wasn’t all that different from how many other _hikikomori_ spent their days. She would distract from her depression and her guilt by browsing the internet, mainly a few boards on 2chan, downloading and watching anime, and occasionally reading manga. Her main occupation at the moment was finishing her binge of Macross Plus.

Only rarely, she would take a break from these distractions and gather her courage to try investigating some of her mother’s old research documents. Inevitably, reading her mother’s writing would become too overwhelmingly sad for her to handle, and she would have a meltdown of some kind, usually involving more produced hallucinations blaming her for her mother’s death. She opted not to dive into cognitive psience today.

She had a minor addiction to online shopping, with money from a weekly allowance Sojiro gave to her from her inheritance, and some she had earned through gold farming in FF14. One of the main ways she spent her time was checking various online shops for prices on computer parts, which she was moderately obsessed with. Her hand-built PC was made entirely from parts she had ordered over time by herself, and was a labor of love to maintain and upgrade constantly.

After finishing her omurice, she started the day with two episodes of Macross, and then played a few rounds of Starcraft 2. She was getting pretty good, for an amateur, but was far from being a serious player. After a couple of frustrating losses, she rolled back into bed with her Vita to play a RPG she had been working on for a while. By this time, it was about noon.

To tell the truth, filling the days this way was growing more difficult all the time. Futaba found herself confronted more and more with moments where all of a sudden, she slipped out of focusing on whatever was distracting her at the moment–on TV, on her computer screen, on her phone–and felt as though she had fallen outside of herself. Like she was a ghost, watching herself from the outside. And she could see everything that was pathetic about herself. This ugly, stunted child, barely even a girl, lying in bed while the world moved on without her. Waiting for a death that felt like it might never come and staving off her true emotions and feelings with an infinity of endless, mindless busymaking.

She was like a pebble someone had thrown into a river, which flowed around her and past her all the time. She was stuck and lost and alone, and everyone else just moved right on by her outside.

She put her console down, and stood up. She wandered out of her room, and to the front of the house, where one of the only windows in the apartment was. She looked outside, and down to the street.

It was a gray, foggy day in Yogen-Jaya. No one was out on the street outside her window. Still, there was something so odd about the sight. She kept staring right at it, standing in front of the window. It was so unsettling that she had started to tear up again.

She wiped the tears from her face, and, barely even thinking, opened the door and descended the stairs.

 


	2. Strange Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Futaba explores the outside world; a stranger is encountered.

> _The moment you came to, I swore I would change_ _  
> _ _Though neither one of us would leave unscathed_ _  
> _ _At least we'll both go on living_
> 
> – “Strange Encounter”, Father John Misty

 

The moment Futaba stepped outside, she felt weak.

It wasn’t particularly bright outside, being a gray, cloudy day. And no one was on the street around her.

Maybe, then, it was the noise. Yongen-Jaya was a relatively isolated neigborhood, and had a small town sort of feeling, even for being in Tokyo. Still, the noise of the nearby shopping district, now busy in midday, could be heard from Futaba’s house.

She knelt down on the pavement for a moment. This was her first time out of the house in years. She wish it changed anything about the way she felt, but mostly, she was wracked with terror and fighting away anxiety.

But there was a deep sense of change within her. Not that she wanted herself to get better, or re-adjust to the outside world; it was that she didn’t really care anymore. All of her feelings, her anxieties, she decided they just didn’t matter. She could float through town and ignore the voices inside her head, she thought, and it wouldn’t matter. She didn’t matter.

Hesitantly, Futaba lifted herself up and began meandering into town.

As she rounded the corner, she noticed someone. On her side of the sidewalk, an old lady, pushing some kind of cart, was headed right for her. She quickly turned around and pulled herself back behind the corner. The old lady didn’t seem to notice.

She quickly wondered what had caused her to panic. This was no different from talking with Sojiro, after all. It was just… another person. There was nothing to worry about.

Swallowing her apprehensions and steadying herself, she rounded the corner once again and began walking confidently parallel to the old woman.

As they neared each other, Futaba started walking much faster than she probably should have. The old woman’s metal cart, probably filled with groceries, squeaked against the pavement, the noise ringing in Futaba’s ears the closer she got, as if giving her anxiety an alarm sound.

As they passed, the old woman looked up to Futaba and said,

“Worthless bitch.”

“W-what?” Futaba stopped in her tracks.

“Good morning,” the old lady said again.

“Oh, y-yes,” Futaba responded, and quickly ran past her.

She was panicking now, but was trying–trying desperately–not to overthink it. She could only move forward now, not wanting to encounter the old woman again, and so she made her way into the shopping district.

As the suburbs around her began to fade away, she again saw people passing her on the street. Two young boys on the opposite end of the street, one carrying a soccer ball above his head, ran down the sidewalk. She stared at them as they went by, cautiously.

Then, across from her, a man in a business suit was making his way toward her in a hurry, talking on a cell-phone as he walked, clearly having some kind of angry, heated exchange. She got more and more nervous, and slowed her movement considerably, as he neared.

“…I know I’m late, but I’m on my way, okay? Do you want lunch or not, I’m right past the grocery…”

He passed without noticing her. She breathed a deep sigh of relief and carried forward.

Some others passed by on the opposite end of the street, and one teenaged woman, one woman in her 20s, and one middle-aged woman passed on her side. None of them said anything to her, or seemed to notice her. She was beginning to grow more confident, and stopped worrying about other people quite as much. Still, in the back of her mind, there was a constant discomfort, a restless unease.

Why had that old woman said that to her? Or, possibly more likely, why had she hallucinated it?

Without thinking, she had reached the market district of Yongen-Jaya. In front of her, people milled about from shop to shop, carrying bentos and shopping bags with them, enjoying casual conversations. It was hardly a large crowd, but the constant motion and noise in front of her gave her the same fear that others might have upon seeing a meat grinder.

She edged forward. What was she going to do? What was she even doing here? At a loss, she made her way into the open-air grocery store and began looking around. The aisles were narrow and constricting, and food filled each shelf in front of her to burst. It was so much to take in.

She noticed some cup noodles. “Ramen…” she said out loud, without thinking. Talking to herself had become a regular practice of hers. Living alone, it was the only real way she didn’t lose her voice completely. She picked up a beef-flavored cup noodles, and examined it.

“Excuse me,” someone said behind her. She turned to look, and saw a woman in a business suit.

“Oh,” she replied. She squeezed herself forward until her chest was pressed against the shelf, which allowed the businesswoman to pass behind her.

After this was over, she took a deep exhale. She quickly put the ramen back and hurried out of the store.

“Miss!” Someone called out behind her, but she pretended not to hear, quickly hurrying forward, deeper into the shopping district.

Now, all of a sudden, it was though she had become surrounded. Totally entrenched. The street reached it’s narrowest point, around a bookstore and the old movie theater, and people milled about in the streets freely, forming a medium-sized crowd. There were people in front of her, passing her on both sides, behind her.

She was out of breath just from sprinting from the store, and found herself panting and totally lost in this crowd of strangers. Then, a boy who looked to be about middle-school age in front of her said, “You.”

“What?”

He was frozen in the moving crowd, uncannily staring directly at her, eyes not moving at all. “Murderer,” he spat at her.

“No,” she replied.

Another man came up behind the boy, a middle-aged man dressed for office work. He loomed over the boy, and stared directly down at Futaba along with him. He started speaking, “You’re responsible.”

“I…” Futaba felt weak. People were passing all around them. She was trapped, surrounded, face to face with these strangers.

The boy suddenly cried, “You killed Wakaba!”

Someone behind her said, “Murderer,” in a gruff voice.

“No…” Futaba protested.

Another woman out of the crowd surrounding her suddenly stopped and turned to her, giving her the same look. “Why don’t you just die already?” she told Futaba.

“I’m,” Futaba started to speak, but her words caught in her throat. She knelt down in the middle of the crowd, on the ground, and put her hands on her ears. This can’t be happening, she thought.

The people passing her didn’t even stop to look at her, but she heard their voices surrounding her.

“Waste of space,” one said.

“Criminal.”

“Weirdo.”

“Get out of the way.”

“Look at that.”

“Despicable.”

“Murderer.”

“Murderer.”

“Murderer.”

“You can’t even die right, can you?”

She started crying. She had curled herself up now reflexively, pressing her arms down on her ears as hard as she could. She felt as though she was going to faint. 

She was now surrounded on all sides by a sea of moving people, and a circle of faceless strangers who were looking down on her, spitting insults.

“Admit the truth, why don’t you?”

“You killed Wakaba, your own mother.”

“She never liked you.”

“She should have known better than to take you in.”

“Sojiro should have known better than to take you in.”

“What’s your problem, freak?”

“Get out of the street.”

“Just kill yourself. You’re wasting everybody’s time.”

She tried to block it out. She tried to convince herself it wasn’t happening. “It’s not real,” she whispered to herself. The voices wouldn’t stop.

“Be honest.”

“You know the truth.”

“The truth is in your heart, isn’t it?”

She felt as though the crowd had begun stampeding her. Someone’s foot hit her from behind. Then, someone stepped on her foot. The pain felt real.

Futaba kept trying to talk herself through this. “This can’t be happening.”

The circle of onlookers had dissipated. All that was left was the sea of people passing and surrounding her on all sides, totally ignoring her, and the voices, coming from every direction, beating down on her.

“You know the truth.”

“Search your heart, you know the truth.”

“Think back. Was that really the whole story?”

She closed her eyes, and fell into a state of half-sleep.

 

—

 

_“Your heart…”_

_“Your mind…”_

_“Your soul…”_

_“They are tainted with corruption, and covered in darkness.”_

_“However…”_

_“There may still be some hope to untangle the tragedy that surrounds you.”_

_“Unfortunately, I cannot help you now.”_

_“Perhaps you can find your heart’s truth for yourself…”_

 

—

 

“Are you okay?”

Futaba was awake. She was still curled up into a ball in the middle of a moving crowd in Yongen-Jaya, and people were moving all around her.

“Young lady, what’s wrong?”

The circle of accusers had dispersed. The voices were gone, for now.

“Miss?”

A man with silver hair in a gray tailored suit was in front of her. He had a youthful face, and a calm, concerned look. His eyes were bright yellow, like a cat’s, which Futaba found surprising. He was, Futaba noticed as a point of fact, incredibly attractive, though much older than her.

His arm was extended out in front of her, and he appeared to be offering to help her up.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” he spoke once again, “but you don’t look well. You seem to have collapsed in the middle of the street.”

Futaba nervously latched onto his arm, and pulled herself up with his help.

“I’m alright,” she responded unconvincingly.

“I doubt that,” he said. “I’m going to help you get some help, okay?” He put his arm behind her and guided her out of the crowd into a clearing in front of an old used goods store.

“I’m fine, really,” Futaba replied, “I just need to get home. It’s not far.” Truthfully, her whole body felt limp and her head was pounding, with both pain and fear.

“You look as though you haven’t had anything to eat in some time,” he commented.

“I just had omurice…”

“Enough. I’m going to get you to the clinic,” he sternly insisted. “Your parents obviously haven’t been taking care of you.”

“The clinic…?”

He began moving, practically pushing, her forward through the surrounding foot traffic. “You need medical attention,” he explained. “You just passed out in broad daylight.”

“No…” she tried to explain.

“You look pale as a ghost,” he interrupted.

“I’m–it’s my complexion,” she protested.

“How old are you, young lady?”

“I’m fourteen.”

“Shouldn’t you be in school this time of day?” he said, continuing to practically carry her through the street. They turned a corner off the main road, and seemed to be approaching a conspicuous building that Futaba assumed was “the clinic”.

“I’m out of school,” Futaba responded.

“And what do your parents have to say about that?” The way he talked to her seemed strange. He wasn’t at all stern, or angry. He almost seemed to be not serious at all, like he didn’t care about her response.

“Nothing,” she answered.

“Of course,” he replied. “Here we are.”

They stopped in front of an open doorway with a staircase leading into the clinic.

“Can you get up these stairs by yourself?” he asked her.

“Y-yes.” She moved away from the gray-suited man’s arm and began trudging up the staircase. She felt faint doing so.

“Are you drinking enough milk?” the man asked, watching her.

“I’m fine,” she replied, not really understanding the comment.

The man quickly made his way up the stairs behind her as she neared the top stair. “Well, let’s go in,” he remarked, opening the door in front of them and holding it for Futaba.

“Why are you…”

“I’m seeing to it that you receive some proper medical attention,” he replied before she could even finish. “Come on, in you go.”

He had a strange accent, but Futaba couldn’t place it. It was posh and aristocratic. Maybe he was some kind of wealthy office executive. He was certainly very bossy.

Futaba entered the clinic, and found a small waiting room with about three chairs lined up against a wall, a door to what she assumed was the rest of the clinic, and a counter, where a blue-haired woman sat. She stood up from her chair as Futaba entered the door and as the silver-haired man followed behind her.

“What’s this about?” the woman asked, to both of them.

The man in the gray suit took the lead, making his way up to the counter. Futaba, realizing that she might be about to collapse, took a seat in one of the green chairs.

“This girl,” the man spoke, motioning to Futaba, “has just passed out in the middle of rush hour outside. She needs some medical attention.” He spoke with intense confidence.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” the woman responded apologetically. “However, I think the best thing to do would be to call an ambulance.”

“What on earth for? This is a … a place of medicine, yes?”

“Well,” the doctor responded, “This is really more of a pharmacy. I think this young lady would be better served by a more equipped facility.”

“Nonsense!” the man responded. Angry, he reached into his coat pocket, and grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter. He fidgeted with it to retrieve a cigarette as he spoke, “I’m certain you’re more than equipped to provide this girl with some basic care.”

“Sir,” the doctor responded, exasperated, “I’m telling you, I’m not really that sort of doctor. And you can’t smoke in here,” she snapped.

“These are herbal,” he responded, “and I’m quite confident in your abilities as a physician, and you ought to be as well.” He flicked open his lighter and lit an herbal cigarette.

“What does that mean?” she asked, confused.

“You’re one of the top doctors in your field, and so forth,” he waved the cigarette around, dragging smoke through the air. Futaba thought it smelled horrible.

“Whatever you heard, I think you’re confused,” the doctor insisted.

“No, no,” he replied. “There’s simply no time or place for humbleness. I’m not leaving until you see to this girl, so why don’t you just get to it?” He looked at his watch, although it didn’t seem to be meant as a passive-aggressive gesture–he was possibly just really concerned with the time.

“I–“ The doctor seemed to be at a loss. “Fine, I’ll perform a check-up, but I won’t guarantee anything. You really ought to send her to the hospital.”

“I insist,” he said, once again looking at his watch. He hadn’t smoked the cigarette once. “Well, I must be going now. Do take care, miss,” he said, looking back at Futaba. He gave her a nod, and then walked out the door and down the stairs without another word.

“What an odd fellow,” the doctor remarked. “Herbal cigarettes,” she said, seeming to be puzzling over it.

“Well, anyway, I’m Tae Takemi. I’ll be your general practitioner for today.”

“Hello,” Futaba responded. She didn’t leave her chair.

She was paralyzed with nervousness. All of a sudden, the strangeness of the situation was dawning on her–she hadn’t truly spoken with another real person in months, and what seemed like years. Her anxieties, which had taken some sort of short vacation, were now moving back in permanently and disastrously.

“And what’s your name?”

“Futaba.”

“I see. Futaba-san, would you mind following me into my exam room?” Takemi took on an entirely different tone with her than she had with the man. She seemed to be beaming with friendliness.

“Okay,” Futaba agreed. She didn’t really think too hard about it–she doubted she had any choice in the matter.

As she got up, she wondered about the strange businessman who had blown through the clinic in a hurry, but couldn’t put her finger on what was so strange about the whole encounter.

 

 

—

 

“Well,” Takemi remarked, looking over her clipboard, “I could tell just by looking at you that you haven’t been eating properly. That’s more than likely the reason you passed out.”

“Yeah,” Futaba agreed quietly. She just wanted to go home.

“Why don’t you describe to me your meals today?”

“I had, um, omelet with rice.”

Takemi seemed pleasantly surprised. “Good,” she said. “And yesterday?”

“Two Red Bulls.”

She scribbled something down disapprovingly. “How often do you exercise, per week?” she then asked.

“Um,” Futaba responded. “What?”

Takemi just sighed, and scribbled again.

“We’ll forego some of these questions for now,” she said, sitting down. “Why don’t you describe to me the fainting incident that just occurred?”

“I…” Futaba was taken aback. Why did she not think this through? “I can’t,” she said.

“You can’t? Why not?”

“It’s… um.”

Takemi seemed confused.

“I just blacked out,” Futaba said.

“Well,” Takemi probed, “I need to know a bit more than that. What were you feeling when you blacked out? Did your head hurt, was your heart-rate increasing or decreasing? Did you start to sweat?”

“I don’t like crowds,” Futaba responded.

“Oh,” Takemi said. “Did you start to panic when you entered the crowd?”

Futaba, ashamed, just looked down and nodded.

“I see. Did it start to become difficult to breath?”

“Sorta.”

“What were you feeling emotionally? What was going through your head?”

“I was… afraid.”

“Really?” Takemi responded. “Does this happen often?”

“Huh?”

“When you go through crowds, do you usually feel this way?”

Futaba said nothing.

“So… I’m guessing you avoid large groups of people, then.”

She nodded.

Takemi began writing some notes down. “Futaba-san,” she said, softly.

“Yes?”

“Could I venture a guess that you avoid smaller groups of people, as well?”

Futaba looked down again. She nodded.

“How often,” Takemi started, then paused. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully, “How often would you say you go outside?”

Futaba was silent.

Takemi offered her a response, “Would you say, not very often?”

She nodded.

“I see. This must be very difficult for you then, yes?”

She nodded again, embarrassed.

“I apologize. I didn’t realize what you were going through,” Takemi said, scribbling something down aggressively, “However, I’m very proud of you for coming in here today. That must have took a lot of courage.”

Futaba, surprised by the sudden compliment, blushed.

“I’m going to need to speak to your caretaker now, if that’s okay.”

“O-oh. Yes, of course,” Futaba consented, and nervously fished out her phone. She unlocked it, selected Sojiro from her contacts list, and handed it to Tae.

“I’m sorry,” Takemi said, “but I’ve really been supposed to do this for some time.” She dialed Sojiro and took Futaba’s cell phone into the waiting room.

As Takemi talked with Sojiro in the next room, Futaba sat on the exam table, nervously staring down and kicking her feet in the air. She was worried with how he might respond–she was unsure what would happen, really. Maybe he would be angry that she left the house.

She couldn’t really make out what was happening out in the waiting room, so she just looked around. There was something comforting about the lighting in this room. It felt very clean and nice. She didn’t actually mind being here, so much. It was much better than the crowds outside.

After a while, Takemi came back in and handed Futaba back her phone. She pulled up her rolling chair and sat down.

“Your father will be on his way shortly,” Takemi explained, “He’s not upset with you, he’s just very concerned.”

Futaba didn’t know whether or not to feel relieved.

“I’ve recommended several things to him, including ensuring that you have a healthier diet, and that you see both a psychologist and a licensed doctor on a regular basis as soon as possible.”

Futaba shook her head.

“I… understand how you feel. Psychology is nothing to be ashamed of, however, and people in your condition have greatly benefitted from it.”

“No,” she said, practically whispering. “I won’t go to a hospital.”

“What?” Tae hadn’t expected this. “Oh, I see. The amount of people would make you nervous, wouldn’t it?”

Futaba nodded.

“Well, most therapists you would see in private offices, like this one. You wouldn’t need to go to the hospital for that. We might even be able to arrange for someone to make a house call, in your case,” she suggested.

Futaba still felt uneasy about seeing a psychologist, but stomached her qualms for now.

“As for the doctor…” Takemi tapped her pen against her clipboard. “I suppose it might be alright for you to come see me for check-ups. Would that be alright with you?”

Futaba nodded happily.

“Well,” she said, getting up. “Sojiro will be getting here from LeBlanc shortly, so you can just relax here until then. I have some paperwork to take care of, so… I’m sure you can find some way to occupy yourself.” The doctor took off back into the waiting room to work.

Futaba exhaled as Takemi left the room. She laid back on the exam table. She felt exhausted by everything that had happened. She had barely even thought through her hallucinations earlier.

Whether or not that _was_ a hallucination, it was just as bad, if not worse, than anything she had experienced in her room. She wondered if they would grow more severe the further she attempted to get from her bed–if they wanted her to stay there. To rot, maybe.

Feeling still tired from everything, she closed her eyes for a moment.


	3. Intervention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Futaba receives a visitor.

> [Aria of the Soul](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aMhM7kWIkA)

Futaba would frequently have nightmares, whether about her mother or herself. Sometimes, these nightmares would be alarmingly specific.

There was one in particular that felt particularly lucid each time she had it. She would wake on a slab, in a room made of sandstone. The layout and design of the place mirrored the dimensions of her own bedroom. There was a table where her computer desk was, and shelves pushed against the walls, only nothing adorned either. And there was no door, nor any ventilation whatsoever. She was clearly intended to suffocate here.

The first few times this happened, she milled about the room, pushing against the bricks. She discovered that she could still breath fine.

Then, one night, she found herself in this room again, with a dagger in her hand. Without getting up, she attempted to cut open her arm to kill herself. As soon as she saw blood, she passed out and woke back up with a start in her bed, at 2 AM.

Every night since then, when she again appeared in the sandstone room, her arms and legs were shackled to the slab, and there was no dagger. She was a prisoner there now– all she could do was stare up at the ceiling until the dream was over.

When she fell asleep on Takemi’s exam table and again found herself in this sandstone tomb, then, she wasn’t surprised. She was once again chained to the slab. What did surprise her, however, was seeing in the corner of the room a man in an indigo suit, silently waiting.

“Hello?” She asked.

“Futaba Sakura,” the voice responded. “It seems you’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?” The man approached her until he was beside the slab. He had a calm, focused stride. On closer inspection, he was wearing a vest and suspenders under his blue suit, and had silver-y hair and striking yellow eyes. Futaba recognized him.

“I know you,” she asserted.

“Of course you do,” he said.

The man looked around, studying the room. “My, my…so this is what your mind looks like.”

“What’s going on?” Futaba asked, panicked.

“Your mind,” the man explained, “is distorted. So much so, that even in this web of your own distortion, you aren’t the master of it. Only a prisoner,” the man sighed.

He knelt down and looked at the places her wrists were shackled to the bed.

“You can’t trust yourself,” he commented sadly.

“You’re the man from earlier,” Futaba said, “The one who helped me.”

“Yes, I am,” he admitted, “I wasn’t supposed to do that. I’m not supposed to be here, either.” He grabbed a hold of the cuffs around Futaba’s wrists, and effortlessly undid them.

Futaba pulled herself upright. She examined her arms, newly free.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked.

“I felt too sorry for you to leave you alone,” he answered, honestly, “Your destiny is a great pity.”

“What does that mean?” Futaba asked. She felt as though she was in a trance-like state.

“It’s difficult to explain,” the man admitted. “You were chosen for a great fate by my master. Essentially, you were to be a pawn in a special game.”

“However,” he went on, “this plan didn’t come to fruition. Your mind was distorted and impure, and you were trapped inside it,” he said, apologetically. He stepped down to the other end of the slab, and undid the shackles that bound Futaba’s legs. “In your present state, I doubt that you possess much of a sense of justice at all.”

“Justice…?”

“For our game,” the man explained, “He needed one pure of heart and resolve, with an unflinching sense of justice. You didn’t qualify, and so we found another.”

“I don’t really understand,” Futaba said. She bent her knees forward and tucked her arms around them.

“I thought you might not,” the man said. A folding chair appeared behind him, inexplicably, and he sat in it. Futaba didn’t say anything about this.

“Do you remember the voice you heard earlier?”

“Um… the ones telling me to die?”

“Not the Shadows,” he said. “The one after, when you passed out?”

“Oh…” Futaba thought back. “Sort of?” She remembered hearing someone saying something about her heart.

“That was Igor, an attendant of the room like myself. He also felt sorry for you because of your discarded fate, and intended to guide you toward unlocking your heart for yourself.”

Futaba didn’t say anything. Unlocking her heart?

“However,” the man went on, “he was captured before he could, and thrown into a prison, not unlike yourself.”

“Why?” Futaba wasn’t really following.

“Part of some long-standing bet,” the man said, dismissively, “It hardly matters.”

“So…who are you, then? Why are you here?”

“You may call me Melchior, or perhaps just Mel. I am a servant of Philemon, and an attendant of the Velvet Room.”

“What?”

He chuckled. “It’s not important. I’m here to help you.”

“Help me?”

“Yes. Truthfully,” he again explained, “I don’t think you will be able to rehabilitate your heart by yourself entirely. Your distortions are too advanced–your sense of reality in the conscious world is even damaged, isn’t it?”

Futaba was starting to understand, somewhat. “Yes.”

“I can help you at least gain some modicum of control in this world, and nothing more,” Mel said. “Would you be interested in that, Futaba Sakura?”

She nodded.

He smiled. “I’m happy to hear that. I will visit you periodically, then, to help mend your heart.”

He got up from his chair, which dissipated in front of Futaba, and turned around. A doorway appeared out of nothing in front of him, and a bright blue light shined out of it.

“Wait,” Futaba said.

He didn’t turn around–he disappeared into the light.

“I don’t understand.”

 

–

Takemi gently prodded Futaba awake.

Her eyes opened. She was still on the exam table. In front of her, Takemi and Sojiro stood over her.

“You fell asleep,” Takemi said, “You must have been tired.”

Sojiro looked like he was about to cry.

She sat up, dazed.

“Futaba, honey, are you okay?” Sojiro asked, distraught. His voice was cracking.

She rubbed her eyes. “I’m fine, dad.”

Sojiro burst into tears, suddenly, and hugged her. It was unexpected; Futaba didn’t know how to respond. “I’m so happy you’re okay,” Sojiro whispered.

“It’s okay, dad,” she said, patting his back.

The two of them stayed like that for a while.

 


	4. Processing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mel allows Futaba to talk through her inner problems.

> _We're all trapped in a maze of relationships_   
>  _Life goes on with or without you_   
>  _I swim in the sea of the unconscious_   
>  _I search for your heart, pursuing my true self_
> 
> _Pursuing My True Self,_ Persona 4

 

Futaba didn’t end up fulfilling her promise to visit Tae on a regular basis, nor did she end up seeing a therapist. As soon as she got back home to Sojiro’s apartment, she buried herself into her room and never left unless she had to.

Her life didn’t change–she grew more set in her ways, if anything. She spent most of her time refreshing boards on 2chan and tiredly scrolling past a sea of infinite content. At least video games were still fun.

She didn’t feel much better, to be honest. She still had fits of sadness, and spent long stretches crying or trying not to cry. And the voices didn’t go away. She was regularly visited by the apparitions of her family, or her mother, and she was consumed with thoughts of suicide constantly. She even started to think, in her darkest moments, that killing herself might bring back her mother.

While all of this added to Futaba’s blues, her one source of relief was she had someone to talk about things with.

Almost every time she slept, she would awake in the tomb of sandstone that mirrored her bedroom once again. The longer she spent there, the more details were gradually added to it–over time, the stone slab was replaced with a real bed, with black sheets, for some reason. A broken screen appeared where her computer monitor was. Her shelves became filled with books, but instead of conveying any information about computer programming or chemistry, they were filled with nonsense hieroglyphics.

Whenever Futaba awoke in this dimly lit place, she would find Melchior there waiting for her. And lying back on her bed, she began to tell him her most personal problems.

In a way, not knowing what Mel really was helped her confide in him. She imagined he could just be a figment of her imagination. He thought of him sort of like a save point in a video game. He was just a… safe place.

Futaba would lie on her bed and look up at the ceiling, and Mel would write in some pad, and occasionally smoke. He would ask her questions–some about her past, and many about her visions, which he referred to as “shadows”.

“What do they say to you?” he asked her one night.

“They tell me that I’m responsible for my mother’s death, mostly. Even though I know that,” Futaba answered.

“They look like your family members, right? Who blamed you for your mother’s death at your funeral?”

“Yes,” Futaba said, becoming a little upset.

“What else do they say?”

“They tell me… I should die.”

“And?”

And? Why did he even want to know this? Futaba grew more upset.

“I don’t belong in this world.”

Mel wrote these things down.

“And that… I know the truth.”

“Yeah?” Mel seemed intrigued.

“They say, ‘You know the truth in your heart’.”

Mel took notice of this. “That’s good,” he said, without explanation, writing more notes down.

“Futaba, have you ever noticed what you’re wearing while you’re in this world?”

Futaba hadn’t. She looked down at herself. She was wearing a long black sweater, and a long black skirt that was torn up at its ends.

“Black,” she said plainly. “So what?”

Mel seemed a little frustrated. “They’re mourning clothes,” he explained, “meaning you’re still in mourning for your mother.”

Futaba thought back–she had worn these to her mother’s funeral.

“Your mind is still in the same state it was when your mother first died. You haven’t matured at all from that moment onward, in other words.”

Futaba looked away from Mel.

“I’m not being cruel,” Mel said. “It’s simply your heart’s truth.”

Futaba felt a little angry at Mel, but hid it.

“Those clothes are one of the first things I noticed when I came in here,” he said, putting his pad aside. “They aren’t your regular clothes in the outside world, nor are they the rightful disguise of your shadow self.”

“What?”

“Forgive me,” he said, and asked another question, “Do you know the true state of this place? Do you know what this world looks like from the outside?”

“No,” she said.

“Can you guess?”

“A box?”

Melchior said nothing.

“A cube?”

Melchior sighed, frustrated. “Sorry,” he said, “I should know better than to rush things. Let’s just continue with the analysis. Can you tell me about your last episode?”

Futaba ignored Mel’s odd words and told him of her latest hallucinations, but in the outside world, she began to turn over the question she asked in her mind.

What was the true state of her mind’s world?

And what was her “rightful disguise”?

A few days later, she again returned to her dream world. Melchior began the session as usual, asking Futaba to describe her recent emotional state. He seemed to be looking at his watch more than usual lately, for some reason.

Eventually, Futaba got up the courage to interrupt the session. “Mel, what was that thing you said about the true nature of this place?”

Mel leant forward. “Oh? Have you realized it?”

Futaba was a little intimidated by his response.

“This place… it’s my room, isn’t it?”

“Yes, in a way.”

“So the world… it has to be Sojiro’s apartment.”

“No,” Mel sighed, “that’s not quite it. The answer’s a bit more complicated than that. It’s about what you perceive this world as.”

“Huh?”

“What do you think of your room as?”

“It’s… my home.”

“Try a little harder,” Mel insisted. “Think about your feelings, not your thoughts, like we talked about. What do you feel about your room?”

“It’s… like a prison.”

The earth around them began to shake. Dust fell off the bricks.

“Close,” Mel said.

“What just happened?”

“The world responded to you,” Mel said.

“Why…?”

“You’re the master of this world, as I’ve told you many times.”

“What am I supposed to be doing here?” Futaba asked Mel, helplessly. She sat up to look at him.

“Listen, Futaba,” Mel said, leaning forward in his folding chair, “I’m going to be perfectly honest with you. We’re running out of time.”

“Out of time?”

“I was never supposed to be here in the first place. In fact, you shouldn’t even be aware of my existence.”

“Are you leaving?”

“Yes,” he said, checking his watch again, “Fairly soon.”

“Why?”

“My only role here,” he explained calmly, “was to help set the stage for another to intervene. To move things forward a bit in your progress towards rehabilitation.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Your mind has to be… opened up a little in order for certain things to happen. In its current state, its future is certainly hopeless.”

“Mel, I don’t understand why you have to leave,” Futaba pleaded, “I like talking to you.”

“I know,” Mel sympathized. “You’re in need of some real therapy, if you could manage it. But for right now, I just need you to keep thinking. What is this place?”

“This place?”

Futaba stood up, and began pacing around the room.

She ran her fingers along the brick walls, making trails of dust.

“This is… hell.”

The ground shook again, violently. Futaba was caught off guard and fell to her knees. Mel almost fell out of his chair, but kept his composure. “Keep trying!” he yelled.

“This is an asylum,” Futaba suggested.

The ground shook again, with a little less strength.

“This is… this is my grave.”

Suddenly, the whole room shook, and both she and Mel could feel the strongest rumbling yet. A terrifying sound seemed to be coming from outside the room. Futaba steadied herself by holding onto the ground, and looked up at Mel for help.

“Futaba,” Mel said, raising his voice to speak over the noise, “You no longer need my help.”

“I don’t understand!” Futaba yelled back. The rumbling showed no signs of stopping, and suddenly a brick fell out of place from the ceiling. Then another, and another in quick succession. The room was collapsing around her.

“Fuck! Mel, please help me!”

Mel was nowhere to be seen. More bricks fell around her, and the walls started to shake and fall apart surrounding her.

“I’m going to die here,” she said.

As the room collapsed around her, and she became buried in bricks, she woke up from her dream.

She felt as though she hadn’t slept at all. It was six in the morning. She rubbed her eyes.

What had happened in her dream? Actually, what had _been_ happening in her dreams? It was like the whole thing had just slipped out of her grasp, just when she was beginning to understand it.

Outside, she heard the television. She wandered out, wearing only a shirt and underwear.

It was still gray and foggy outside. A plate of two eggs, sunny-side up, sat on the kitchen counter, still warm. Sojiro was fumbling with his keys in front of the door.

“Oh, Futaba!” He seemed surprised to see her.

“Hi, Sojiro-san,” she mumbled.

“Good morning,” he replied, “I’m surprised to see you up so early.”

“There’s eggs for you,” he continued, “I was just about to leave to go open LeBlanc, but I can stay if you want.”

“That’s okay, you should go,” Futaba muttered, still sleepy.

“Should I leave the TV on? I was just watching the news.”

“Sure,” Futaba said dismissively.

Sojiro left, and Futaba sat in front of the television eating breakfast.

“…rated top 10 in customer satisfaction and with unbelievable deals happening this weekend, there’s never been a better time to stop by your Junes Department store!”

“Everyday’s great at your Junes!”

Futaba must have seen that commercial a million times.

“And we’re back with our weather report. Spring continues this week, with rain and intermittent cloudy weather all week…”

Futaba looked outside, out at foggy, early morning Tokyo.

Was what Melchior said about her true? Had she really not matured at all since her mother’s death?

She supposed it must be. She hadn’t really been _trying_ to mature, after all. She had made no effort to change her ways, or to unravel any of “her heart’s mysteries”, as Mel called them.

Should she have? Maybe she should have spent more time looking into her mother’s research - she had barely made a dent into all the writing.

Futaba studied the clouds outside. The news filtered into her ears as she looked for any sign of rain.

“…local news, a minor incident has occurred at Shujin Academy, a private high school in Tokyo. Official reports are coming in saying that olympic athlete and instructor at Shujin, Suguru Kamoshida, has been targeted by a campaign that has accused him of physical and sexual abuse during his time as instructor…”

It didn’t look like it was going to rain any time soon.

“…a group calling themselves the ‘Phantom Thieves’, which as of press time, has no record of previous activity…”

“This is…” Futaba whispered to herself.

“…authorities at Shujin are denying all claims, and Kamoshida has personally responded to the claims by saying…”

“Boring.” Futaba turned off the television, went back to bed, and instantly fell back to sleep.

 


End file.
